Table of contents for April 2015 in Digital Camera Magazine

Get your views heard We’d love to hear your thoughts on the magazine and all things photographic! So email us at digitalcamera@futurenet.com or visit us at www.facebook.com/digitalcameraworld STAR LETTER WHAT, NO GIMP? I have to admit that I’m a bit dismayed you didn’t mention free image editors in your group test [Digital Camera 161]. You are giving people the impression that you need to spend money to edit photographs the way Photoshop does. That’s simply not true. I have been using Gimp (www.gimp.org) for a few years now. It supports layers and is as powerful as Photoshop in many respects. The online editing and mobile editing ‘features’ that Photoshop CC are offering are just that: features. No enthusiastic photographer will edit their images on a tablet, let alone a phone.…

Sony has carefully developed its α7 series of compact system cameras into a world-beating proposition. All the models offer the convenience of a full-frame sensor in a mirrorless body, keeping the size down, married with the power and flexibility you expect from a pro camera – all at prices that will surprise you. A growing family of lenses is designed to meet all of your photographic needs. The α7 series is based around a full-frame sensor (equivalent to a 35mm camera) and Sony’s BIONZ X processor: together they deliver superb image quality. The α7S can also shoot high-res 4K video. A fast autofocus system and high ISO sensitivity mean that the α7 series is ready for whatever situation you challenge it with, as the seasoned photojournalist Antonio Olmos and the…

View Mode Choose a view that shows the best contrast between subject and background. You can press F to cycle between them all, and press J to toggle the Radius View on or off. Refine Radius tool This brush-based tool lets you hand-paint a radius – ideal for increasing the area of refinement to cover tricky areas with lots of gaps in-between, like hair or fur. Hold Alt if you need to erase parts of the radius. Adjust Edge These four sliders allow you to make basic changes to the selection. Smooth will take the edge off jagged parts of the selection for a curvier finish. Feather will soften the edge. Contrast will add definition and create a harder edge. Shift Edge allows you you push the edge inwards or…

Don was very self-motivated, and speaks of how “voices in his head” persuaded him to go to Berlin in 1961, just as the Wall was being erected. “Sometimes I would be the only photographer there at this most important event. I had one camera, no money, nowhere to stay. What made me do it? To this day I don’t know. “It was the same when I later went to the Congo. I went 1,000km into an area where journalists weren’t allowed, borrowed a uniform and got on a plane controlled by the CIA. It could have ended in tragedy. My father used to gamble away the family wages at the dogs, and I said I would never be a gambler – but I have gambled for the highest stakes in…

Digital Camera is brought to you by the UK’s most experienced team of photography journalists, which means you can trust everything you read on our pages, and compare kit with confidence. We believe the best way to test a product is to use it as it was intended. Our real-world testing involves taking equipment on a proper shoot - whether outdoors or in the studio - and using it exactly as you would, to let you know whether it’s fit for purpose. Although scientific data won’t tell you everything about a product, it’s a great way tomake comparisons and sense-check our real-world conclusions. We have a series of controlled tests for cameras and lenses that deliver objective benchmarks. Digital Camera is 100% independent - and never swayed by the influence…

CSC £899 / $1,099 > www.olympus.com For many, the most exciting new feature of Olympus’s latest compact system camera is that it can use its built-in sensor-shift stabilisation system to create 40-million-pixel images. This is made possible by moving the sensor by microscopic amounts to take eight separate shots, which are then combined into a high-res composite image. Before you get too excited, bear in mind that shooting these high-resolution exposures takes one second altogether, and the subsequent in-camera image-processing to merge the shots adds another 2.5 seconds. Consequently, this feature is really designed for shooting static subjects while the camera mounted on a tripod. While Olympus is quick to quash any talk of this composite imaging feature turning the E-M5 Mark II into a competitor to medium-format cameras, which…

This 200Ws flash head has a rather lower power rating than the competing 400Ws and 500Ws heads on test. Similar to the Elinchrom D-Lite range, Interfit’s EX200 Ti has a built-in wireless receiver and, when bought as part of a kit, you also get the Interfit Dynamic Ti Trigger. This enables you to control the main functions of up to seven Ti flash heads from one unit. When bought separately, the radio trigger costs around £35 / $50; Ti flash heads are available in 200Ws and 400Ws options. The construction of the EX200 Ti feels less robust than the competing flash heads, but they’re easily tough enough for the home studio. Like all other flash heads in the group, the main flash tube and modelling lamp are both user-replaceable. PERFORMANCE…

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Portraits are all about the eyes. They’re the first thing you look at, providing an instant connection with the subject. Enhance them with these six essential tips. 1 Boost whites and contrast Boost contrast to help eyes jump out of the image. Click on the Add Adjustment Layer icon in the Layers panel and choose Curves. Draw a large S-shaped curve with two points to boost contrast. The skin will look awful but don’t worry: we’re only interested in the eyes. Press Ctrl/Cmd+I to invert the Curves Layer Mask, then paint with a soft-edged white brush to reveal the Curves layer over the eye. If the effect is too intense, lower the layer Opacity. You can also try adding a Vibrance Adjustment Layer to boost colours in the same way.…

Hair extraction is one of the most common digital portrait conundrums. Luckily, the Refine Edge tool feature in CS5 or later offers several settings that make short work of extracting hair, so you’ll quickly be trimming locks like a professional hairdresser. Step by step Add a background and cut around the hair 1 Select the background Sometimes it’s easier to select the background then invert the selection, so grab the Magic Wand tool from the Tools panel and click on the background to begin selecting it. Hold Shift and continue clicking around it until you have a rough selection of the entire area. 2 Invert the selection Press Ctrl/Cmd+Shift+I to invert the selection. Next, click Refine Edge in the Options bar. This brings up the Refine Edge Dialog Box. Press…

Use the techniques that we’ve set out in this guide, and your fully retouched portrait should look both stunning and authentic. Photoshop is an incredibly powerful tool, but just because you have the opportunity to erase every imperfection, make a person look 10 years younger or shave off several dress sizes, it doesn’t mean that you should go ahead and blindly do it. There are no rules or code of conduct for Photoshop users, but it’s best to act responsibly when retouching a portrait. At the end of the day, the question that needs asking is how far is too far? This isn’t just the case with portraits. The hardest part in any Photoshop technique is often knowing when to stop. Too much skin blur and your portraits will look…

Absolute beginner or full-time pro, there’s a workshop for you ! BEGINNERS ’ MAST ERCL ASS Sponsored by Panasonic Want to start taking photography seriously, but not quite sure where to start? Our half-day courses on the Saturday and Sunday mornings of the show will send you on your way, with lots of ideas and confidence. Each two-and-a-half hour session is split into four segments, presented by four different experts – and costs £10. Saturday 21 March or Sunday 22 March 10:30 – 11:05 Camera and lens choice Join Angela Nicholson, Head of Testing at Future Publishing’s photography titles, as she explains the differences between types of cameras and lenses, and which equipment is right for you. 11:05 – 11:40 The basics of exposure Straight-talking Damien Demolder breaks down the…

Web Spinners and Deer Stalkers Duncan Herring First Place, Breathing Spaces category, sponsored by The National Trust 1 “I took this photo while shooting the annual deer rut at Bushy Park in Richmond upon Thames. I had arrived for sunrise and had already been following various stags around for an hour, trying to capture them in the magical golden light and heavy mist. I had previously noticed the dew-laden webs; then out of the corner of my eye, I saw the figure of another photographer strolling off after the deer. I just had time to crouch down, frame, and release the shutter.” Canon EOS 5D Mark III with 24–105mm lens at 105mm; 1/125 second at f/8, ISO 125 The Ballerinas Magdalena Wasiczek Overall Winner, International Garden Photographer of the Year…

I came across the January 2015 edition of Digital Camera in my local bookstore in Massachusetts, USA. I have been thrilled with it. The issue is wonderful – rich with information and the perfect thing to have come across on a brutal winter here in New England. I have been experimenting with the creative home projects and love all of the bundled extras - CD, Dictionary of Photography, info cards, and more. Wonderful publication. Deb Hemley, USA. It’s always nice to hear from our overseas readers. It’s great to see you are trying out our home DIY projects during the cold winter months you have been enduring. Be sure to keep in touch and send us your images. We’re always interested in hearing your thoughts.…

Landscape photography is highly popular with many photographers, both pros and enthusiasts. With the competition to take the next great shot so fierce, it is vital to make your work stand out from the rest. Here, we’ve gathered five of the most creative landscape photographers around, each with their own highly distinctive style. They’ll each be delivering a mini master class, which is aimed to inform and most importantly inspire! You’ll be let into their top secrets and presented with an analytical breakdown of why their images work. So to take the next step in your journey as a landscape photographer, just turn the page...…

Desert Ride IV Flying over the desert in a helicopter just south of Los Angeles, Christian was struck by how graphical the desert looked from the air, and asked the pilot to slow down so he could work on some shots. Shooting with a Mamiya Universal film camera, Christian needed to use a gyro to avoid the negative effects of vibration from the helicopter. He framed the road and car in the bottom right-hand corner to give the desert context and a sense of scale. Navigate A stitch of three vertical shots taken close to an Autobahn route near Brenner, Germany, this was shot for Deutsche Telekom’s ‘Big changes start small’ sustainability campaign. Christian thought it seemed appropriate to use a tilt-and-shift effect to get the message across. Shooting from…

HELP ME TO SHOOT BETTER PRO DUCT SHOT S “Please help me, Digital Camera! I’m the owner of a home decor shop and I want to learn how to capture better product shots. I have a range of stock from large furniture to small nick-nacks such as vases, lamps, baskets and boxes. I don't have a lot of photographic kit, though – just a bridge camera and a tripod.” Kirstie Jackson, Bath…

Refine Edge works best when the initial selection is as accurate as possible. If the subject is on a clear background, the Channels method of selection can be effective. Go to the Channels Panel [1] via Window > Channels. Click each channel to see which gives the best contrast between background and subject [2]. Drag that channel to the New Channel icon [3] to make a copy. Next, increase the contrast so the subject is totally white and background is black (or vice versa) [4]. Use Levels (Ctrl/Cmd+L) to boost contrast. Paint with the Brush tool set to Overlay to make the channel perfectly black and white, then simply Ctrl/Cmd-click it to load a selection of the white parts. DOWNLOAD TUTORIAL FILES bit.ly/dc162files…

SLR £639 / $899 > www.nikon.com Most of the specification is familiar – but at last, we have a Nikon SLR with a touchscreen You’ll need to look carefully at the specification list of the D5500 to find the differences between it and the Nikon D5300. Both cameras have the same APS-C format (DX in Nikon terminology) sensor with 24.2 million effective pixels and no optical low-pass filter, an Expeed 4 processing engine, a 3.2-inch 1,037k-dot vari-angle screen and Wi-Ficonnectivity built-in. The exposure metering and AF systems are also the same and the continuous shooting rate is 5fps. At ISO 100-25,600, Nikon has kept the sensitivity range the same on the D5500 as it is on the D5300, but the top three settings are now part of the native range…

Think studio lighting and you’ll probably have a flash head in your mind’s eye. Massed ranks of amateur and professional photographers prefer them, because they give more bang per buck. Flash heads tend to be reasonably compact, lightweight and manageable, while delivering plenty of power, as the flash itself only lasts for a split-second. Traditionally, constant lighting rigs for photography have been big, heavy and expensive, requiring much more electricity yet giving far less light output. They’ve also tended to run hot: less than ideal if you’re not a fan of the sweaty look in portraiture. But sizes and weights have been massively reduced with the advent of constant lights based on quartz-halogen bulbs, or even LED panels. Prices have come down and, overall, constant lighting has become worthy of…

With its strong metal casing and chunky build, the Gemini 500R is typical of Bowens lights. At 3.4kg, it’s more than twice the weight of the Elinchrom flash head. It’s quiet too, designed to dissipate heat without a cooling fan. With a rating of 500Ws, the Gemini has the highest power rating of this group. Its 250W modelling lamp is just about bright enough for use as a constant light source. There’s no built-in wireless receiver but plug-in cards are available for Bowens Pulsar and PocketWizard radio triggering systems. Optical slave triggering options include a Smartcell mode that ignores pre-flash pulses when using a flashgun as a master. Available modifiers include brollies, softboxes, snoots and honeycomb grids, so the Gemini is able to deliver versatile lighting techniques. PERFORMANCE Despite its…

Like most flash heads at this price point, the Lumen8 is available on its own or as part of a twin-head kit. There are also single-head kits with a good air-damped lighting stand and either a brolly or a softbox. Light modifiers and other accessories are of good quality, but this is the only flash head in the group for which a wireless receiver is neither built-in nor available as an extra. Instead, Lastolite markets a basic radio trigger, the receiver for which plugs into the head’s sync socket. The head has been updated since its original release. It now features an auto-dumping facility, so you don’t need to manually fire the flash after reducing its power setting, and the flash tube is now user-replaceable. In both these respects, the…

1 Olympus shares its name with Mount Olympus – a sacred peak in which venerable world mythology? A Greek: it was the home of the Olympian gods, including Zeus B Chinese: it was the mountain that supported the heavens C Japanese: the Emperors and Shoguns were believed to go there after death D Norse: it was the scene of the gods’ showdown in Ragnarok 2 Which Italian was famed for their images of 19thcentury China and Japan? A Tina Modotti, one of the first western female photographers to work in Asia B Ettore Roesler Franz, noted for his exquisite, hand-tinted photographic prints C Giacomo Puccini, who also found the time to write operas like Madame Butterfly D Felice Beato, also reputed to exhume and rearrange victims of the Opium War…

Lips are almost as important as eyes in a retoucher’s list of priorities. A simple retouch would be to burn the line where the lips meet, then enhance the tones with an adjustment layer. Besides boosting the colours, there are other useful techniques to make the most of your subject’s lips. If you’d like to alter lipstick colour, add a Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer – just as we did to the eyes on page 28 – or you can even make them fuller. Just draw a loose selection, feather it by 10 pixels then enlarge with Transform Mode. Step by step Make lips more inviting 1 Burn the gap Press Ctrl/Cmd+C to duplicate your Background Layer, then select the Burn tool from the Tools panel. In the Options bar, set range…

The number one request put to professional retouchers goes along these lines: “Can you shave off a few kilos, please?” The good news is that this can be done – and in a variety of ways, too. When photographing a portrait, there are always certain angles from which someone will look their best, such as shooting from above to tone down a double chin. To add to this, Photoshop also allows you to tuck arms and shrink waists. Let’s take a look at some of these smart techniques. Step by step Trimming up 1 Draw a selection To start work on a specific area, first press Ctrl/Cmd+J to duplicate your Background Layer, then pick up the Marquee Selection tool from the Tools panel. Draw a loose selection around the chin…

Burnley Windfarm To express a sense of movement in the blades of the wind turbine, Ian needed an exposure time of about 1/8th sec. This was achieved by attaching a B+W six-stop neutral density filter to his 10-20mm Sigma lens. The low cloud and dramatic sky gave an added bonus on the day. Cottam At Full Power Coal-fired power stations like Cottam are so huge that Ian needed to be about 3km away to get this shot, using his 70-300mm lens at 70mm. The best time of year to shoot these power stations is in the late autumn, winter and early spring, when they are working at maximum capacity.…

Knowing the effect you want to achieve will determine which exposure setting you need to choose first In addition to their role in exposure, the choice of aperture, shutter speed and ISO have a significant impact on the look and feel of your pictures. Aperture, for instance, affects the depth of field, or how much of an image appears sharp. Shutter speed also affects image sharpness, with slower shutter speeds leading to blurred images – whether that’s caused by the subject moving or the camera not being held still. The choice of ISO enables you to use the optimum combination of aperture and shutter speed when the amount of light would normally prevent you from doing so. However, increasing the ISO also reduces the quality of your images. Use the…

Skies are brighter than land, so a correct exposure for the land might result in a sky that’s too bright. As such, skies often benefit from darkening with Lightroom’s Graduated Filter tool. Grab the tool and drag from the sky towards the land while holding Shift to keep the lines horizontal, then dial in negative Exposure to darken the sky. If, like the castle here, parts of the land protrude into the sky, there’s a neat trick you can use to negate the darkening effect. Simply increase the Shadows slider to lighten the affected area.…

To apply a correction that has just been made to multiple images, select the image thumbnail then right-click and choose Copy Correction Settings. Next it’s simply a case of clicking the thumbnails of the images you would like to apply the correction to, then right-click and select Paste Correction Settings. The same adjustments are now applied to every image you’d selected, saving you loads of time to go out and take more photos.…

* Don McCullin CBE is a British photographer famous for his images of conflict, famine and emergency. He now prefers to be known for his landscape photography. * Born in 1938, Don had a tough London childhood, establishing himself as a photographer with his images of a notorious local gang. * Don subsequently covered conflicts in Cyprus, the Congo, Vietnam, Bangladesh and Beirut, as well as the effects of Aids and famine in the developing world. * Books include McCullin in Africa and Shaped by War. McCullin, a Bafta-nominated film about his life, was released in 2012. It’s hard to avoid clichés when introducing Don McCullin. His is a tale of a street kid who studied at the school of hard knocks, saw first-hand that war is hell, and lived…

You’ve got your digital SLR or CSC and you’ve been happily shooting away, capturing photo after photo. There’s just one problem: all of a sudden, your desktop or laptop computer’s hard disk seems to keep running out of space, because of all the photos you’re storing on it. When you hit this point, it’s time to get serious about your storage – and that’s where Drobo comes in. Drobo offers a range of storage units designed to protect your valuable files from drive failure while giving you the freedom to choose your storage capacity and increase it over time, without any hassle. The Drobo Mini, which you could win in this issue’s competition, is also compact enough to take with you, with an optional carrying case to hold your Mini,…

SLR EOS 750D / Rebel T6i, £600 / $750; EOS 760D / Rebel T6s, £650 / $850 > www.canon.com Canon has introduced two new cameras with different designs and control layouts to suit different users. The EOS 750D (branded as the Rebel T6i in the US) is aimed at beginners who want automatic modes and simple controls, while the EOS 760D (or Rebel T6s) is intended for enthusiasts who want more creative and manual control. There’s little difference in the size and weight, but the 760D swaps the mode dial from the right side of the camera to the left to make room for a status LCD. The 760D also has a second control dial on its back to make changing important settings much quicker, especially when shooting in the…

LEN S £1,639 / $1,999 > www.nikon.com Nikon’s replacement for its AF-S Nikkor 300mm f/4D IF-ED includes a Phase Fresnel (PF) element, to combat chromatic aberration and enable the number of component elements to be reduced from 16 in 10 groups to just 10 in six groups. This results in the weight being reduced by about half to 755g. The new lens is also just 147.5mm long instead of 222.5mm. If it lives up to Nikon’s image quality claims, it could prove popular with wildlife photographers wanting to travel light. There’s also Nikon’s VR technology, effective to a claimed 4.5EV, to reduce the impact of camerashake. A fluorine coating repels water, dust, and dirt. What I like: Impressive size and weight reduction. What I don’t like: We have yet to…

Based around a quartz-halogen bulb but lacking a cooling fan, this constant light head certainly runs hot. Standard use is based on a 300W bulb, but in the unlikely event you want less power, you can fit a 150W bulb instead. As with other halogen-based lamps, changing the bulb wattage also requires changing the rating of the quick-action fuse. As an additional safety precaution, a glass plate is positioned in front of the bulb. A similarity with the Elinchrom halogen head is that the Bowens features a zoom mechanism, in this case enabling a range of 115 degrees flood to 95 degrees spot, when used in conjunction with the built-in reflector. Optional accessories include a glass daylight correction filter, a diffusion filter, and four-leaf barn doors. This really only covers…

1 Benro C2970F Versatile Transformer + BH2-M ball head Price: £245 Web: www.kenro.co.uk This carbon-fibre tripod features an excellent pivoting centre column mechanism. It extends to 184cm, with load ratings of 12kg and 8kg for the legs and head respectively. 2 Gitzo GT3542XLS Series 3 6X Systematic + GH3780QD ball head Price: £1,070 / $1,530 Web: www.gitzo.co.uk The Gitzo raises the stakes for rigidity, with well-crafted carbon fibre legs and a solid ball head, with load ratings of 25kg and 21kg respectively. Even without a centre column, the tripod has a maximum height of 212cm. 3 Induro AT214 Alloy 8M + BHD1 ball head Price: £295 / $309 Web: www.indurogear.com Like the Gitzo and Sirui tripods in this test, this aluminium Induro is based on four sections in each leg,…

People often feel self-conscious about crooked or yellow teeth, but luckily there’s an easy fix in Photoshop. The Liquify filter is the perfect tool for tweaking and tucking shapes, so it’s great for straightening teeth. The Clone and Healing tools are also good choices when you need to tidy up chips or remove marks. For those who like 10 coffees a day, teeth can be cleaned up with a Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer. This allows you to target and desaturate the yellow tones in your image. Step by step Dental work without the pain 1 Straighten the edges Press Ctrl/Cmd+J to duplicate your Background Layer, then go to Filter > Liquify to access the Liquify dialog box. Zoom in to the teeth, then use the top left Forward Warp tool to…